You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Sean Jones Interview - #28

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

It's the last special guest of the week as Peter and Adam bring trumpeter Sean Jones to the Podcave, where they discuss his career and (of course) Miles Davis.Want some jazz trumpet lessons from Sean Jones? Check out Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of his Open Studio course: Jazz Trumpet Fundamentals.Like the Sean Jones clips we used in this episode? Listen to more from his album Live From Jazz at the Bistro.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. That is good stuff. And I'm not just... Okay, I'm just saying that because you're sitting there. No, man.

That's some good... That's incredible. It really is. Holy cow. That is the beautiful sounds and tones of Sean Jones and his group live at the bistro from Mac Avenue. And we have a very special guest in the house today. Mr. Sean Jones. What's up, y'all?

How you doing? Good, man. Always good to be here. Who was in that band when you recorded over there? That's actually a composition that you're listening to now is written by the saxophonist Brian Hogan's from Atlanta, Georgia, rounding out the rhythm section is Obed, Calvier, Oren Evans, and Lucas Curtis and myself.

Yeah, some slouches. Terrible cats. Those were great gigs. I remember being there a couple of the nights, and I think you had two different bands maybe that week. Yeah, I basically created a, situation where it was two versions of a quintet, two versions of a quartet, and we recorded each version each night on different nights. So the first night was a quartet with Obed as a drummer.

Second night was a quintet with Obed as a drummer. Then the third and fourth nights, we brought in Mark Whitfield, Jr. to play drums. Right. Yeah. Great stuff. Yeah, great stuff. So, Sean, you are, somehow you have mastered the art of not only the Trump but of the ability to both be everywhere at all times, but to really do meaningful things when you get there. There's a lot of guys and gals that like just sort of take a lot of different things and do a lot of different things. But one of the things that I admire so much about you is that you do quite a few things, but you really do them well. And you put a lot of your heart and soul into them. And I've been around you and, you know, got the chance to play.

We're playing all this week, but we're doing other stuff. We're doing workshops. We're doing interviews, photo shoots and stuff, and you have this like very just peaceful, graceful ability to kind of float from one thing to the next. And so have you thought about that? Because I know you're super like ambitious about doing things and really calculating in a very positive spiritual way about like your career and stuff. But like how do you how do you go from like, you know, the S of Jazz Collective to your band to teaching, you know, heading up the program at Peabody and all these different things that you do? But but keep that quality. quality level high. I think it's a couple different things. One, I've learned to be

comfortable inside of uncomfortable situations. And that is like reinventing yourself. I'm constantly trying to reinvent what I do, who I am in education. So the moment that I get comfortable, I immediately started I start looking for something else to challenge me immediately. But it has to be a natural extension of what I've already been doing. Like education, for example, spent 10 years of Duquesne University. And as soon as I got my tenure letter, I immediately started looking for another job. Getting too comfortable. Yeah, it was like, okay, now I'm set here. What's next? The admin was like, we have never sent out a letter like that and then had somebody quit. Yeah, usually they're setting flowers. He's, he's so everywhere that

I ran into you at Jen. And I was like, oh, I didn't know you're going to be here. He's like, yeah, I'm president-elect. Yeah, I just like challenges, man. I mean, I think, that's, I think Miles said it best. You know, you just got to be, any time a musician gets comfortable, they start to decline in their art form. So I'm just looking for stuff to continue to inform who I am as an artist and as a person.

Yeah, I think this is a really important point that you'll hear it listeners will appreciate because part of being an artist is, it's that discomfort, but it's not settling for where you are for knowing that there's something else pass there and realizing that this uncomfortableness, this like not settling,

that's the process. That is it. Yeah. Well, and I think that there's such a tradition of that in jazz in terms of how we play it. Like that's what gives a lot of the music, I think, it's edge. But I would say, especially with trumpet players, like you bring up Miles, and I'm thinking about a lot of great trumpeters, Freddie Hubbard,

like just in the moment of the way that you guys play, you know, and I love playing with, like, especially calming behind musicians like you, where like if I start to throw a curveball or something kind of goes off for a second, like you don't look at it as like, oh, man, you know, it's like, oh, this is a channel. Like how do we pull? Like, what's the other path?

Like, how do we do that? It's an opportunity. And like trumpet being such a frontline instrument, you know, there's that natural leadership thing, even if you're not the leader, but it just comes from the nature of the instrument that can set the tone in a super exciting way for the band. Yeah, I think that's why Miles was so hip, man. I mean, he would imagine. Talking about being uncomfortable, right?

In order to be uncomfortable, you had to give up your comfort. So think about how much success Miles actually gave up in order to go into the next level of success in his career. Yeah, for real, totally. Seriously, I mean, kind of blue. He could have done that and was like, okay, cool, that's it. Right. No, he gave that up and just kept going.

Sketches this main? Exactly, yeah. It takes a lot of courage. Yeah, it takes a lot of courage. And because he's in that front line position, the band trusts that. It's like, okay, he's already putting his ass on the line. So let me do the same.

Well, it's funny because we, I mean, we're doing this every day. Like, how often is, like, Miles Davis's name comes up almost every day? Almost to the point, sometimes I'm like, man, people that think we're relying on him so much. But I really think he has this outsized influence, I mean, way beyond just trumpet players. And obviously with his different bands, he had such an influence on, you know, Herbie and Chick and all these, you know, Wayne Short that went on to have influences. So it's like he's sort of this grandfather of the music in terms of like, you know, a number of different specific musical things,

but maybe this really interesting like live on the edge. You know, be uncomfortable. Like, turn your back to the audience, do whatever it is, but the music is always killing. Like, that's one thing with him. Like, it was always like the level of musicianship in terms of who he chose and how he played was always there, of course. Can you think of another artist in any genre that changed,

so much and wrists so much. I mean, it's really, it's a short list of folks. Bruno Mars. Oh, no. I don't know why he bought to buy. You know, why is Miles always on the cutting edge of everything? It seems that way in his prime when he was, you know, I mean, he's incredible.

On to the next. See, every time we're like, we're talking about Miles, then bam, we start doing it again. We can't help me. I'm totally fine with that. That's cool. Cool. So, you know, one of the many exciting things that you've gotten involved with

somewhat recently is taking over the program at Peabody, at the Peabody School of Music. And can you just tell us a little bit about sort of your vision for that? Because I know you have some very interesting kind of unique things about how, and I know it's early still. Yeah. And so it's a very exciting time. Well, the first thing that excited me about the opportunity is that the program was actually sort of on a decline.

And so where I, you know, a lot of people saw like, oh, man, this is going to, this is trouble. I saw opportunity. and I saw opportunity through the musicians that were living in the area. I mean, you've got some of the greatest jazz musicians on the face of the earth, living in Baltimore, D.C., all cats right there. They're my peers, and they're friends, great educators, bad cats. So I thought to myself, let's investigate this and see what's possible.

And through talking to the deans that were there and the president of the university, They sounded like they were like really supportive of whoever came in to build it. And I asked, I said, listen, am I going to be able to bring in my own people? And they said, yeah, you'll be able to do that. And I said, okay, cool. So I took the plunge, man. And it was a very difficult decision to leave Berkeley, man. That's like leaving like the ivory tower, man, to go down and just really get your hands dirty and try to build something.

but it's been great. So the vision, faculty, faculty that live in the community, faculty to perform in the community, bringing students into the community to perform, having real musicians come in and teach from experience instead of teaching from a book, teach from a practical standpoint, teaching the tradition while letting them know what's going on in the field right now, introducing some technologies that's something that we're going to start to do later on. We know some people who can do that. Yeah.

I'm looking at them. And sort of pairing down the curriculum so they can actually work on the stuff that they're being introduced to while they're in school. So a lot of times they're so inundated with work and with this class, that class, and all of that that they can't practice until the summertime. Right. That's a great point because that's, and I didn't realize because I've been kind of disconnected with the conservatory scene as a student. until recently in talking to different folks, but I didn't realize that the requirements had gotten to be so much.

And yeah, it's so easy to lose sight of like, in order to play this music, you have to shed. Of course, you have to be playing situations, but I mean, if we don't give them a chance to just have those hours in the practice room, how are they going to, I mean, they're going to learn all this other stuff, but they're not going to be able to play when they graduate. And then they're going to be coming to you and be like,

I was just talking to a young bass player who's from here, and he goes to a very good music school. And he said he was feeling overwhelmed. And he's a really good player, has it together, but just feeling overwhelmed, just the amount of information being kind of forced upon him without being able to kind of have the time to process. Is this what I should be doing?

It's a challenge of jazz school for sure. Yeah. Because there are these different thoughts that, you know, from different teachers that come at you. And I like the idea of giving the students and time. Yeah, that's every music school. Yeah. And almost any, not just music school,

but any program, those classes justify hours, which justify income for the people that are working there. And so it's a hard thing. It's a hard balance to create because every class that you take away, you're taking away hours from a faculty member. But at the end of the day, the university, the college, you're there for the students. So you have to always think about them first. And so we're pairing down. We have a nine member faculty. And the good thing is, is that these cats are out on the road. They're out playing and that's encouraged. So go out and do your thing so that you're not like pounding the door down at the university trying to create

courses to make more money. So there's a balance there that can be created. And we all work together. We cover each other's classes. We make sure that students know that they can talk to us at any point in time. So we're really trying to create a community there. Not to mention that being out playing actually helps you become a better or more relevant teacher. Exactly. Your students. Right. And then plus, if you get like a student

is a really good bass player, you can pull them out on the road. Exactly. Yeah. It's true. The recruitment side. That's great. So that's the teaching end.

You're always involved with a lot of great performance situations. I know you've left SF Jazz now after a wonderful tenure there, really being associated with them. What's on the horizon playing wise with your own group? You got some stuff coming up. You're excited about? Yeah, I'm working on a few different projects. Actually, I did a commission's,

called Flying Girls that I'm looking to record that. And that's my first venture into pedals. I bought this pedal board, getting into more electronics and different effects and sounds like that. So that's kind of an electric band. Down the rabbit hole, man. Yeah, exactly. I'm working on with that. I'm working on a project with tap artist Brunay Ali, which is a Dizzy Gillespie project that deals with Dizzy and Afrofuturism. So that's tap, turntables, rhythm section, and myself with. pedals so I'm working on that and um and also in education I'm working with Carnegie Hall with NYU jazz and that's that's a lot on my place so there's a lot there now do you guys have you haven't like I know last year you had Diane

Reeves was kind of the featured soloist and artists traveling with the do you guys have somebody this year is it just the band or this year's Kurt Elling oh wow is going to be out with us and we're going to Asia this year okay so that's exciting that's great and then smart you guys get those top singers yeah that's like you doing, man. Yeah, hey, those are the best. Yeah. And also, I just recently became the president-elect, as you said, of Jen.

So we'll be doing a lot of work with that. You're going to be getting a lot of calls from old friends, about getting the different opportunities, you know. They hook me up with a booth. Yeah, hooked up. So before we go, we're just going to mention because it's such a, you've done two courses for us here at Open Studio that are wonderful jazz, trumpet fundamentals volume one and volume two.

And we've gotten so much great feedback on them. And for folks that are interested, you know, trumpet players, brass players in general, what's been fun for me to see is like the different places that, you know, you get member, the members come and acquire your courses. And I remember you mentioned kind of on your way out after the first recording session, you know, you were like, you know, you might want to think about getting these translating to Spanish because there's a lot of folks in South American. And I was like, wow, it seems so random.

But then we started getting the orders from, like, Colombia, definitely Brazil, you know, Argentina. It's a brass culture. It's a real brass culture there. But they really connected with you and the knowledge that you broke down. And it's so great, you know, for folks that don't know about it because you do everything from, like, you know, how to, you know, clean your mouthpiece to, like, how to play over Cherokee to it really, you know,

it's a jazz course, but it's more trumpet course for a modern jazz player, I guess I'd say. You do that whole breakdown on the arbin. you know, method. I mean, it's like... Clark Studies. Man, yeah. We were like trumpet nerddom, you know, the ultimate level up in here. But you always keep it like super fun and interesting and engaging.

Actually, my favorite lesson is the one on the blues on volume one with... You talk about the 10 bar blues. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That's so great. I stole a bunch of stuff off that. It was great. It's not still borrowing.

It's borrowing. I bought the course. Yeah, come. So, well, thank you so much, John, for being here on the You'll Hear Podcast with us. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. And until tomorrow. Yeah, thanks for having me, cats. Yeah.

I think we're going to go out. Let's go out with one of something from your kaleidoscope albums. Sure, man. I love this tune, Allison, man. Oh, Allison. Oh, Allison is incredible. Hold up. That's my jam.

That's my jam. Okay, that could be your jam. I picked this first, Ed. All right. Okay, cool. You'll hear it.